Long Beach breaks ground on latest affordable housing project as it tries to ramp up production

City of Long Beach officials joined developers to break ground Friday on 1400 Long Beach Boulevard, a 163-unit affordable housing complex located at its namesake address in the Midtown neighborhood.

The latest development is a major notch in the city’s belt as it struggles to meet its state-mandated housing quota.

Shovels in hand, the local elected stood shoulder-to-shoulder with executives from Meta Housing to “turn the dirt.”

“We are thrilled to begin construction for this exciting project in Midtown,” said Mayor Rex Richardson. “It carries on our commitment to prioritizing affordable housing options for our community, as we continue to produce affordable housing at record levels. And because of this great project, 163 Central Long Beach families will have stability and better opportunities to thrive.”

The project’s construction should take about two years. Once complete, it will be a six-story complex offering one to three-bedroom apartments — ranging in size from 510 to 1,239 square feet — for low-wage individuals and families, which is estimated at 30-70% of the local median income. Amenities onsite will include a community room, courtyard and play area.

It is the sixth project to be constructed by the Los Angeles-based, for-profit developer Meta Housing Corporation. Ivana Wang, an associate project manager with Meta, said Monday the complex will cost $87.6 million to construct, paid for by affordable housing tax credits as well as the state’s CalHFA Mixed-Income Program.

“We are deeply grateful to the City of Long Beach and our partners, including the Foundation for Affordable Housing, Bank of America, and the California Housing Finance Agency whose support has been instrumental in making this vision a reality,” said Taylor Rasmussen, Meta’s Vice President of Development.

Those with tenant-based vouchers will also be accepted, officials said.

The building will stay affordable to tenants for at least 55 years, Wang said. It will replace a series of former car repair shops, a common trend in Long Beach and cities statewide as developers looking to cut costs will flip vacant or abandoned lots into housing.

This groundbreaking comes as Long Beach, along with municipalities across California, continue in their attempt to meet state housing goals outlined by their individual Regional Housing Needs Assessment.

The city of Long Beach, according to the city’s sixth cycle of its housing element, must construct 26,502 units between 2021 and 2029 — about 3,300 units each year. More than 11,000 of those units — about 42% — need to be for “low” to “extremely low” income levels, which is equivalent to making between $23,700 and $63,100 per year.

So far, the city has been on track to meet its state quota, at least for market-rate housing. But in terms of affordable housing, it’s still falling short.

“We’re just a couple years in and we’re already pretty far behind and that’s because it would take billions in subsidies to actually meet the need which is actually beyond local control,” said Alison Spindler-Ruiz, a Long Beach city planning manager.

To answer why is complicated. For one, the state quotas are difficult to meet. Few for-profit developers statewide invest regularly into affordable housing projects as the margin for profit is wafer thin. Most projects are pulled together, instead, by a patchwork of grant funds and tax credits needed to entice a developer to become involved.

It also takes years to plan and approve projects, even with the city approving a local homelessness emergency last year, which expedites permit approvals. Plans for the 1400 Long Beach Blvd. project were finalized at the end of last year, Spindler-Ruiz said, but construction didn’t commence until months later.

The ebb and flow known to be standard business for a city planning commission often doesn’t mesh with the rigid timetables of the fiscal year. It’s why of the 2,934 housing units that were entitled by the city last year — more than triple the average from the previous three years — only 1,011 units received their final permits to allow move-ins.

It’s also why the city is about to surpass the prior year’s final permit numbers — 931 proposed units so far — with another six months to go in 2024.

“That’s because we entitled so many units last year,” Spindler-Ruiz said. “And they’re moving along through the process.”